The national governance is currently under the alternative influence of two contradictory motivation mechanisms-motivations from formal and informal systems, which leads to the ineffective governance of ″the public power for public use only″. As soon as market economy was ushered in, national governors, who used to be in control of the national power, began to show the complicated motivation of their behaviors. That is, the governors in charge of public power also claim personal interests. They have their own priority between political ethics and economic claims. As long as the institutional motivation mechanism keeps producing decreased effects, the non-institutional motivation mechanism would grow rapidly without adequate means of institutional incentives. As formal institutions are unable to sustain themselves, informal institutions, that is, the customs and regulations, would be short of incentive potency to make people obey formal rules. In other words, when laws and regulations lack institutional capability, informal rules would become deformed and contorted, and eventually become a defensive account for those who are provoked to make a reckless move towards corruption and illegal transactions. As a result, corruption has proved to be another term for such informal motivation mechanisms. For the reconstruction of governors' motivation mechanism, it is crucial to establish a brand new motivation system with the function of rebooting the potency of institutional motivation and responding to the motivation claims of the era as well. There are two approaches to the rebuilding of motivation mechanism in formal institutions. On one hand, the approach of backward retreat is an attempt to recover the motivation mechanism in the age of planned economy. On the other hand, the approach of forward improvement is the endeavor to construct a motivation mechanism complying with legalization and regularization as well as satisfying the needs of the age of market economy. This reconstruction work in the age of market economy requires that the group of governors be treated again as ordinary human beings. On this basis, it is necessary to design five types of demands that accord with different levels of human needs from spiritual value to physical desire. Another important dimension is that the institutional means of motivation ought to be provided to complete the reconstruction. In this way, the rule of law which sets strict and specific rules for the society, and customs which set conventional norms that discipline human behaviors, are able to cooperate and effectively restrain governors in their ″human″ form. There is no doubt that the reconstruction of such motivations has a long way to go.
任剑涛. 在正式制度激励与非正式制度激励之间----国家治理的激励机制分析[J]. 浙江大学学报(人文社会科学版), 2012, 42(2): 140-147.
Ren Jiantao. Motivations of Formal and Informal Institutions:An Analysis of Motivation Mechanisms in National Governance. , 2012, 42(2): 140-147.